Abraham  Lincoln 

Kentucky  Mountaineer 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Kentucky  Mountaineer 


An  address  delivered  before  the  faculty  and  students 

of    Berea  College,   Berea,   Kentucky, 

Thursday,  March  8,  1923 


By  WILLIAM  E.  BARTON 

Author  of  "The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"   "The  Paternity 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  etc. 


BEREA  COLLEGE  PRESS 

Berea,  Kentucky 

1923 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2012  witli  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnkeOObart 


973,7^^3 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Kentucky  Mountaineer 

Lives  of  great  men  encourage  and  assist  us  in  propor- 
tion as  we  realize  that  these  men  have  interests  in  common 
with  ourselves.  There  could  be  little  profit  for  us  in  the  study 
of  the  biography  of  a  person  wholly  beyond  the  sphere  of 
our  personal  interest.  But,  even  though  a  character  in  history 
is  known  to  have  lived  in  a  land  remote,  and  in  a  period  far 
distant  from  our  own,  we  are  profited  in  learning  about  him  if 
we  can  discover  that  his  ideals,  struggles,  hopes  and  attain, 
ments  had  in  them  qualities  and  conditions  akin  to  our  own. 
We  study  a  noble  character,  and  it  mirrors  for  us  qualities 
of  nobility  in  ourselves,  qualities  which  we  may  hardly  have 
known  that  we  possessed.  We  read  the  life  story  of  a  hero, 
a  patriot,  a  man  truly  great,  and  we  say  to  ourselves  that 
under  like  conditions  we  ourselves  might  have  displayed 
qualities  of  heroism  not  wholly  unlike  those  which  he  man- 
ifested. Although  we  recognize  the  degree  of  his  greatness 
as  being  far  above  that  which  we  at  present  can  hope  to  at- 
tain, we  are  comforted  and  helped  if  we  find  his  nobility  to  be 
the  same  in  kind  as  our  own  best  aspiration.  High  as  he  may 
tower  above  us,  we  still  are  at  liberty  to  feel  that  the  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  his  endeavor  and  success  are  akin  to 
those  which  we  ourselves  possess.  Even  his  faults  and  fail- 
ures may  help  us,  by  giving  us  a  larger  sense  of  companion- 
ship with  him.  We  do  not  greatly  care  for  heroes  inhuman- 
ly good.  We  want  to  feel  that,  however  good  and  great  a 
man  may  have  been,  his  goodness  and  his  greatness  are 
such  as  we  ourselves  may  aspire  to  achieve. 

The  Bible  is  an  encouraging  book,  because,  while  it  re- 
veals to  us  a  perfect  standard  of  human  life,  and  gives  to  us 
a  long  list  of  concise  biographies  of  those  who  have  aspired 
to  attain  that  life,  it  faithfully  records  the  motives  and  strug- 
gles and  faults  and  failures  as  well  as  the  virtues  and  successes 


of  those  who  participated  in  the  struggle  in  which  we  have  a 
share.  The  hves  of  these  faithful  men  and  women  help  us 
because  we  feel  their  kinship  with  ourselves;  otherwise  they 
would  seem  alien;  if  they  did  not  seem  too  good  to  be  true,  at 
least  they  would  appear  hopelessly  beyond  our  emulation. 

No  character  in  American  history  appeals  to  the  young 
life  of  America  more  strongly  than  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
One  reason  for  this  fact  is  that  we  are  constantly  aware  that 
his  success  and  his  goodness  are  such  as  belong  to  ordinary 
lives.  At  no  point  do  we  feel  that  he  is  incomparably  above 
us.  No  group  of  young  people  in  America  has  a  better  right 
to  rejoice  in  the  companionship  of  Abraham  Lincoln  than 
those  who  are  residents  of  this,  his  native  state,  and  those 
who,  whatever  the  states  of  their  birth,  are  students  of  Berea 
College.  We  have  about  us  here  the  conditions  that  help  us 
to  realize  our  kinship  with  America's  greatest  American.  I 
am  calling  to  your  mind  today  some  of  the  outstanding 
characteristics  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  particularly  those  that 
identify  him  with  the  life  of  the  southern  mountains,  and 
those  that  make  their  appeal  to  young  people  in  process  of 
securing  an  education. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  ancestry  was  the  common  ancestry 
of  the  people  of  the  Kentucky  mountains.  So  far  as  we 
have  been  able  to  trace  it  through  both  lines  of  his  descent, 
it  was  unmixed  Anglo-Saxon.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  the  mountain  people  of  Kentucky  and  adjacent  states 
belong  to  a  separate  group  of  families  than  the  people  who 
inhabit  the  more  fertile  regions  of  the  same  states.  If  one 
should  glance  over  a  list  of  the  early  settlers  in  what  are  now 
the  mountain  counties  of  Kentucky,  and  a  similar  list  of  early 
settlers  in  what  are  now  the  Bluegrass  counties,  he  would 
find  the  family  names  interchangeable  to  a  very  marked  de- 
gree. There  were  not  two  distinct  and  separate  kinds  of 
people,  who,  coming  from  Virginia  or  the  Carolinas,  settled, 
one  sort  in  the  Bluegrass  and  the  other  in  the  mountains. 
Abraham  Lincoln's  grandfather,  for  whom  he  himself   was 


named  Abraham,  came  to  Kentucky  from  Virginia  in  the 
year  1780,  and  his  three  sons  grew  to  manhood  in  what  is 
now  Washington  county.  One  of  them,  Mordecai,  removed 
to  lUinois,  another,  Josiah,  to  Indiana,  and  the  youngest, 
Thomas,  to  that  part  of  Hardin  county  which  is  now  Larue. 
There  were  not  three  separate  Lincoln  famihes,  one  in 
Indiana,  one  in  IlUnois  and  one  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky;  it 
was  all  one  family.  Furthermore,  the  pioneer  Abraham  Lin- 
coln had  a  brother  Isaac  who  lived  in  Tennessee  and  prosper- 
ed and  owned  slaves;  and  another  brother,  Thomas,  who  locat- 
ed on  a  rich  farm  in  the  Bluegrass  region,  in  Fayette  county, 
a  few  miles  from  Lexington.  The  Lincoln  stock  was  the 
same  in  all.  Nothing  could  be  more  unscientific  than  to  as- 
sume that  the  mountain  people  of  Kentucky  represent  a  dis- 
tinct racial  type.  They  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  common 
life  of  the  southern  central  portion  of  America.  The  Lincoln 
family  has  been  spoken  ot  as  belonging  to  the  poor  whites. 
They  were  white  and  they  were  poor,  but  they  were  not  poor 
whites.  The  Lincoln  family  that  lived  in  the  hills  of  Hardin 
county  was  of  as  good  blood  as  the  Lincoln  family  that  lived 
near  Lexington.  It  was  good,  honest,  American  stock.  At 
the  time  of  the  Revolutionary  War  the  name  Lincoln  was  al- 
most wholly  a  Massachusetts  name.  The  muster  rolls  of  that 
colony  contain  numerous  Lincolns;  there  were  relatively  few 
Lincolns  in  the  other  colonies  of  New  England  or  the  colo- 
nies further  south.  The  family  from  which  Abraham  Lincoln 
descended  was  a  branch  of  the  Lincoln  family  that  settled  in 
Massachusetts  in  Colonial  days,  a  family  from  which  sprang 
governors  of  Massachusetts  and  commissioned  officers  in  the 
Revolutionary  War.  That  branch  of  the  family  that  found 
its  home  in  the  Kentucky  hills,  was  as  Abraham  Lincoln  said, 
undistinguished,  but  it  was  not  ignoble.  It  was  a  good,  typi- 
cal, American  family. 

Furthermore,  the  early  pioneers  did  not  understand  as 
well  as  we  understand  the  difference  in  value  of  Bluegrass 
as  distinct  from  mountain  land.    They  knew  of  course  that 


a  rough  mountain  country  was  less  favorable  to  agriculture 
than  a  region  comparatively  level;  but  they  did  not  know  the 
wide  diversity  in  soil  values  between  the  limestone  regions 
of  central  Kentucky  and  the  less  fertile  regions  of  the  hills. 
They  drew  no  broad  lines  on  their  maps  between  mountains 
and  Bluegrass.  The  lines  that  have  been  drawn  by  economic 
and  social  conditions  are  not  likely  always  to  remain  as 
distinct  as  they  have  been.  Thousands  of  mountain  families, 
having  prospered  by  the  sale  of  their  timber  or  their  coal, 
have  moved  and  are  moving  into  the  more  fertile  regions  of 
the  South.  Socially  and  economically  the  valleys  are  being 
exalted  and  the  mountains  and  hills  laid  low. 

Furthermore,  the  conditions  of  pioneer  life  amid 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  were  the  conditions 
which  characterized  the  American  frontier  everywhere 
in  timbered  regions,  particularly  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Alleghenies.  These  conditions  linger  longer  in  the  moun- 
tains than  elsewhere,  and  hence  have  seemed  particularly 
to  characterize  the  mountain  region.  But  they  were  the 
conditions  inevitable  to  the  westward  movement  of  American 
population. 

It  is  well  to  have  these  things  in  mind,  because  when  we 
think  of  Abraham  Lincoln  we  do  not  regard  him  as  represen- 
tative of  a  section.  We  think  of  him  as  belonging  to  the 
whole  life  of  America.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  but  insofar  as 
the  mountains  of  Kentucky  had  a  life  of  their  own,  Lincoln 
was  fairly  representative  of  that  life.  He  was  born  in  a  log 
cabin,  with  an  earthen  floor  and  a  stick  chimney.  He  was 
poor  even  as  poverty  was  counted  in  the  backwoods.  The 
extent  of  that  poverty  has  sometimes  been  exaggerated,  but 
even  if  the  Lincoln  family  had  been  as  poor  as  it  is  believed 
to  have  been,  it  was  poverty  that  carried  with  it  no  conscious 
degradation. 

The  school  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  typical  school 
life  of  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Edward 
Eggleston  in  one  of  his  books  has  reminded  us  how  frequently 


the  schoolmasters  of  that  early  day  were  strolling  Irishmen. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  Abraham  Lincoln's  first  school 
teacher,  Zachariah  Riney,  was  Irish.  For  two  brief  periods 
in  Kentucky  and  three  in  Indiana,  Abraham  Lincoln  went  to 
school.  The  schools  which  he  attended  in  Kentucky  were 
"blab"schools  in  which  the  students  were  required  to  study 
their  lessons  aloud.  It  may  have  been  in  part  the  result  of 
this  early  training  which  induced  in  him  the  life-long  habit  of 
reading  aloud,  even  when  he  was  reading  to  himself.  When 
writing,  also,  he  was  accustomed  to  pronounce  each  word  as 
he  wrote  it.  From  this  habit  he  never  recovered.  It  carried 
with  it  a  certain  weighing  of  the  words  which  he  uttered. 
The  method  of  instruction  in  schools  of  that  day  was  cer- 
tainly a  faulty  one,  but  the  good  there  was  in  it  Lincoln  ac- 
quired and  retained. 

In  those  early  schools  almost  the  only  textbook  was  the 
speller.  A  pupil  was  required  to  spell  through  the  spelling 
book  several  times  before  he  was  expected  to  put  words  to- 
gether. Lincoln  became  a  good  speller,  a  better  speller  than 
George  Washington.    Rarely  did  he  misspell  a  word. 

Lincoln  learned  to  write  slowly  and  carefully.  He  never 
became  a  rapid  writer  but  he  wrote  a  free,  clear,  legible 
hand. 

He  studied  Pike's  arithmetic  and  learned  to  cipher  as  far 
as  the  Rule  of  Three.  This  was  as  far  as  his  public  school- 
ing carried  him.  But  he  was  required  to  write  essays  and  to 
commit  declamations  to  memory,  and  he  learned  to  read  in 
the  Kentucky  Preceptor  and  in  Lindley  Murray's  English 
Reader.  The  example  of  good  literature  which  he  found  in 
these  books  were  of  permanent  value  to  him.  Although  his 
attendance  upon  the  five  different  schools  aggregated  less 
than  one  whole  year,  his  schooling  was  not  without  profit  of 
a  substantial  character. 

The  books  in  Lincoln's  boyhood  home  were  few.  First 
of  all  was  the  English  Bible.  Besides  this  he  had  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  ^sop's  Fables,  a  history  of  the  United  States,  the 


Arabian  Nights  and  Weems'  Life  of  George  Washington. 
Later  he  borrowed  and  read  the  statutes  of  the  state  of 
Indiana.  In  his  later  boyhood  also  he  read  a  life  of  Francis 
Marion  and  a  biography  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  Whether 
these  books  were  selected  by  accident  or  special  Providence, 
they  could  hardly  have  been  better  chosen.  It  has  often 
been  said  that  Abraham  Lincoln  borrowed  and  read  every 
book  within  walking  distance  of  his  father's  house.  Perhaps 
this  is  true,  but  even  so,  the  number  of  books  he  read  was 
not  great.  He  read  a  few  good  books  carefully,  and  he 
mastered  their  contents. 

There  is  no  greater  mistake  than  to  confuse  education 
with  literacy.  You  perhaps  know  some  good  people  in  the 
mountains  who  can  scarcely  read  at  all  but  who  have  a  con- 
siderable accumulation  of  knowledge  and  a  very  great  store 
of  true  wisdom.  In  spite  of  their  illiteracy  they  have  acquir- 
ed a  very  valuable  education.  On  the  other  hand,  the  world 
is  tolerably  full  of  people  who  can  read  from  three  to  nine 
novels  a  week  and  who  neither  are  nor  ever  will  be  educat- 
ed. No  process  could  be  invented  more  destructive  of 
memory  than  the  reading  of  innumerable  books  which  one 
has  neither  the  purpose  nor  the  desire  to  remember.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  read  the  books  which  he  wanted  to  remember. 
He  studied  them  and  mastered  their  contents.  It  is  better 
to  read  thoroughly  a  few  good  books  than  to  make  the  mind 
a  sieve  by  the  indiscriminate  reading  of  many  books. 

Chief  among  the  books  which  formed  the  literary  style 
of  Lincoln  was  the  English  Bible.  He  himself  has  told  a 
story  concerning  the  use  of  the  Bible  as  a  textbook  for  read- 
ing in  at  least  one  of  the  public  schools  which  he  attended. 
He  read  the  Bible  and  became  familiar  with  it.  It  formed 
the  background  of  his  literary  composition.  It  gave  him  his 
similes  and  characteristic  forms  of  speech.  He  entered  his 
series  of  debates  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas  with  the  funda- 
mental declaration  quoted  from  the  words  of  Jesus,  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot    stand."     His  second 


inaugural  address,  greatest  and  noblest  of  all  of  his  literary 
and  oratorical  achievements,  is  like  a  chapter  taken  out  of 
the  writings  of  one  of  the  old  prophets. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  sense  of  the  value  of  words. 
He  chose  his  words  carefully  and  with  discrimination.  He 
did  not  use  a  long  word  if  a  short  one  would  answer  the 
same  purpose.  On  the  other  hand  he  did  not  cheapen  his 
utterance  by  the  use  of  words  so  commonplace  that  they 
failed  to  express  his  meaning. 

Whatever  else  a  student  gets  or  fails  to  get  out  of  a  col. 
lege  course,  he  ought  to  acquire  a  good  and  adequate  and 
accurate  English  vocabulary.  There  are  young  men  who 
graduate  from  college  who  are  incapable  of  writing  a  clear, 
simple,  business  letter,  and  who  would  be  perplexed  if  they 
were  confronted  with  the  duty  of  sending  to  some  young 
woman  a  simple  and  dignified  invitation  to  a  lecture  or  con- 
cert. There  are  young  women  who  have  college  diplomas 
but  cannot  write  a  neat  and  legible  letter,  and  who  have  no 
conception  of  the  value  of  simple,  clear,  dignified  English 
words. 

Speaking  at  Gettysburg,  Abraham  Lincoln  said,  "The 
world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  w^e  say  here, 
but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here."  He  was  speak- 
ing of  the  men  who  fought  at  Gettysburg  for  the  mainten- 
ance of  the  American  republic.  He  felt  that  in  comparison 
with  their  heroic  deeds,  any  words  of  his  must  be  unworthy 
and  short-lived.  He  was  greatly  mistaken.  Lasting  as  is 
the  memory  of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  the  address  which 
Abraham  Lincoln  delivered  on  that  battlefield  will  live  long- 
er than  the  record  of  the  battle.  The  Gettysburg  Address 
will  continue  to  be  printed  and  recited  and  loved  a  thousand 
years  after  the  particular  mention  of  the  battle  shall  have 
disappeared  from  the  briefer  histories  of  the  world.  Words 
fitly  chosen  are  among  the  most  lasting  of  all  human  achieve- 
ments. "The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,"  said  Jesus 
Christ,    "they   are  spirit  and  they   are  life.    Heaven  and 


earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away." 

Abraham  Lincoln's  education  taught  him  not  only  to 
read  but  to  think;  not  only  to  write  but  to  reason.  He  had 
by  nature  a  logical  mind,  and  he  cultivated  his  powers  of 
reason.  He  said  of  himself  that  when  he  was  a  boy  it  al- 
ways annoyed  him  to  hear  anyone  talk  in  language  which 
he  could  not  understand.  He  therefore  determined  when 
he  began  to  speak  in  public  to  use  language  which  the 
people  could  understand,  language  which  clearly  expressed 
his  own  thoughts.  He  said  that  he  was  never  satisfied  until 
he  could  bound  a  subject  north,  south,  east  and  west.  His 
clear  language  was  the  result  of  clear  thinking. 

Lincoln's  education  did  not  cease  when  he  left  school. 
When  he  was  forty  years  of  age  he  served  one  term  as  a 
member  of  Congress.  There  he  learned  something  about  a 
different  kind  of  proof  than  any  he  had  had  occasion  to  em- 
ploy in  his  law  suits  in  Illinois.  He  heard  the  word  "demon- 
strate," and  did  not  know  what  it  meant.  He  looked  in  the 
dictionary,  and  found  that  to  demonstrate  was  to  prove  con- 
clusively, and  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt.  He  was  told 
that  that  form  of  proof  was  to  be  found  in  the  study  of  the 
higher  mathematics.  Lincoln's  study  of  mathematics  in  school 
ended  with  the  Rule  of  Three.  At  New  Salem  he  studied 
surveying,  where  also  he  studied  grammar.  He  had  a  very 
meager  basis  for  a  pursuit  of  higher  mathematics,  but  he  pro- 
cured a  book  on  logic  and  procured  also  a  copy  of  Euclid. 
At  the  age  of  forty  he  mastered  the  principles  of  formal 
logic,  and  learned  to  demonstrate  every  proposition  in  the 
six  books  of  Euclid. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  Lincoln  was  employed  as  council 
in  the  McCormick  Reaper  case.  In  some  respects  this  was 
the  most  important  case  which  up  to  that  time  he  had  tried. 
The  trial  occurred  in  Cincinnati.  Lincoln's  senior  associate 
was  Edwin  M.  Stanton.  Stanton  was  much  disgusted  with 
Lincoln's  appearance,  and  did  not  permit  him  to  plead.  Lin- 
coln was  very  indignant  over  the  treatment  he  received  at 


Stanton's  hands.  Stanton  described  him  as  "a  long,  lank 
creature  from  Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty  linen  duster  for  a  coat, 
on  the  back  of  which  the  perspiration  had  splotched  wide 
stains  that  resembled  a  map  of  the  continent."  Lincoln, 
through  a  door  slightly  ajar,  heard  Stanton  inquire,  "Where 
did  that  long-armed  creature  come  from,  and  what  can  he 
expect  to  do  in  this  case?"  Lincoln  was  deeply  grieved. 
However,  as  he  listened  to  the  trial,  he  became  convinced 
that  there  was  a  possible  measure  of  justice  in  Stanton's  rude 
decision.  He  noticed  in  the  arguments  of  the  council  in  that 
case  a  certain  power  of  analysis  and  compactness  of  reason- 
ing unfamiliar  to  him.  "I  am  going  back  to  Illinois  to  study 
law,"  he  said.  Thus  did  Lincoln  learn  from  his  own  hard  ex- 
perience and  mortification.  How  well  he  learned,  and  how 
magnanimously  he  displayed  his  character,  is  manifest  in  the 
fact  that  later  he  called  to  a  position  in  his  cabinet  this  same 
man  Stanton  who  had  so  abused  him. 

Lincoln's  education,  far  from  being  complete  in  the 
schoolroom,  was  continued  through  all  the  years  of  his  life. 
The  man  who  at  the  age  of  forty,  and  after  having  been  a 
member  of  Congress,  could  go  home  and  master  the  science 
of  geometry,  showed  capacity  for  very  severe  self-discipline. 
The  man  who  in  1857,  having  been  a  candidate  for  a  United 
States  senatorship  and  being  then  at  the  head  of  the  bar  in 
his  own  state,  could  accept  a  humiliation  and  an  insult,  but 
use  it  as  the  occasion  for  new  study  and  a  larger  degree  of 
culture,  had  in  him  qualities  of  perseverance  and  application 
worthy  of  consideration  on  the  part  of  all  men  and  women 
who  wish  to  make  the  most  of  their  lives. 

Too  often  the  educational  process  stops  when  the  student 
leaves  school.  It  was  not  so  with  Lincoln.  His  education 
was  only  begun  in  school.  The  whole  process  of  his  life  was 
educational.  It  was  the  opinion  of  his  law  partner,  Herndon, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln,  whose  development  had  been  slow 
and  continuous,  had  only  entered  upon  the  final  stage  of  his 
intellectual  growth  when  death  overtook  him.      Herndon 


believed,  not  that  Lincoln  had  reached  the  zenith  of  his  intel. 
lectual  growth,  but  that  if  he  had  lived  he  would  have  been 
even  a  greater  man,  because  he  was  continuously  improving 
his  mind  and  his  power  to  use  the  attainments  of  which  he 
was  possessed. 

From  the  time  Abraham  Lincoln  began  to  go  to  school, 
his  home  in  the  Kentucky  hills  was  in  another  part  of  the 
county  of  Hardin  than  that  in  which  he  was  born,  and  one 
much  nearer  to  the  Bluegrass  region.  The  Knob  Creek  farm 
was  situated  on  the  main  thoroughfare  between  Louisville  and 
Nashville.  It  was  a  rough  road,  but  it  was  the  main  highway 
between  the  two  cities.  Lincoln's  home  was  no  longer  in  the 
heart  of  the  back  woods.  It  was  in  a  place  where  travelers 
were  passing  every  day.  It  was  where  there  was  more  or 
less  contact  with  the  outer  world.  The  Knob  Creek  farm  of 
Thomas  Lincoln  was  not  more  than  two  miles  above  the 
mouth  of  Knob  Creek,  and  there  the  Bluegrass  began. 
Knob  Creek  emptied  into  the  Rolling  Fork  of  Salt  River 
which  flowed  less  than  fifty  miles  before  it  entered  the 
Ohio  river.  He  had  growing  contact  with  men  and  an  ave- 
nue out  into  life.  An  important  part  of  the  education  of 
Lincoln  was  that  which  was  derived  not  from  books  but 
from  men.  Books  are  of  very  great  value  in  the  educational 
process  but  there  never  yet  was  a  book  as  great  as  the  man 
who  made  it.    Men  are  greater  than  books. 

Moreover  it  was  largely  through  men  that  Lincoln  ac- 
quired his  later  knowledge  of  books.  It  was  Jack  Kelso,  a 
kind  of  wandering  elocutionist,  who  recited  to  him  the  poems 
of  Bums  and  Byron  and  some  quotations  from  Shakespeare, 
and  set  him  first  to  hearing  and  then  to  reading  good  poetry. 
It  was  Mentor  Graham  who  first  by  personal  association 
and  then  by  books  quickened  within  him  the  ambition  to 
study  grammar  and  surveying.  Lincoln  knew  not  only 
books  but  men.  Throughout  his  life  he  increased  his  knowl- 
edge by  increasing  the  range  of  his  acquaintance  with  men. 


We  have  been  talking  so  long  about  the  education  of 
Lincoln,  we  may  almost  have  forgotten  that  we  set  out  to 
discuss  his  character  in  the  light  of  his  birth  and  training  in 
the  Kentucky  mountains.  But  we  have  not  forgotten  this 
part  of  what  we  are  proposing  to  do.  The  beginnings  of  all 
his  course  of  discipline  were  in  the  log  cabin  home  and  the 
log  schoolhouse  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky.  There  began  the 
process  of  education  which  made  Lincoln  the  man  he  was. 
That  process  of  education  continued  and  was  supplemented 
by  instruction  outside  the  mountains.  The  man  who  grew 
up  through  this  process  and  became  the  leader  of  his  nation 
was  the  same  man  whose  life  began  and  whose  education 
received  its  original  impulse  in  the  Kentucky  hills. 

Let  us  now  consider  one  or  two  respects  in  which 
Lincoln  was  especially  well  fitted  for  his  life  task  because  of 
his  background  of  experience  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky. 

In  the  first  place,  Lincoln  understood  better  than  most 
men  in  public  life  in  his  day  the  extent  to  which  the  South 
possessed  an  anti-slavery  element.  We  hear  frequently  of 
''the  solid  South."  There  never  has  been  a  solid  South. 
Long  before  the  war  there  was  in  every  Southern  state  a 
strong  abolition  sentiment.  The  father  and  mother  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  were  married  at  a  time  when  the  anti-slav- 
ery sentiment  in  Kentucky  was  especially  pronounced,  and 
they  belonged  to  a  group  of  Baptist  churches  in  which  that 
sentiment  was  just  then  finding  most  emphatic  utterance. 
Lincoln  knew  that  the  South  was  not  solidly  pro-slavery. 
He  knew  that  even  among  the  slave-holders  of  the  South 
there  were  many  who  hoped  for  ultimate  emancipation,  and 
he  knew  that  the  South  had  a  large  number  of  white  men 
who  owned  no  slaves  and  whose  own  free  labor  was  cheap- 
ened and  degraded  by  competition  with  slave  labor.  This 
knowledge  enabled  Lincoln  to  approach  the  problems  of  slav- 
ery with  far  more  of  caution  and  effectiveness  than  some  of 
the  more  uncompromising  abolitionists. 

Further,  Abraham  Lincoln  knew  what  he  could  not  well 


have  learned  had  he  not  lived  in  the  south,  that  a  very  large 
section  of  the  South  was  opposed  to  secession.  Hence  Lin- 
coln was  very  patient  with  Kentucky  when  its  governor  in 
1861  undertook  to  maintain  an  armed  neutrality,  taking  no 
stand  either  for  or  against  the  Union.  Lincoln  was  so  pa- 
tient that  it  was  said  of  him  in  sarcasm  that  ''Abraham  Lin- 
coln hopes  he  has  God  on  his  side,  but  feels  that  he  must 
have  Kentucky.'' 

At  the  time  it  seemed  preposterous  that  Lincoln  should 
be  as  patient  as  he  was  with  a  state  that  refused  to  come 
out  squarely  and  take  its  stand  for  the  Union.  But  we  can 
see  from  this  distance  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  wise. 
The  Albany  Evening  Journal  on  October  18, 1862,  said: 

"Kentucky  even  neutral  would  be  worth  50,000  men  to 
us;  in  her  present  loyal  position  she  is  potent  almost  to  de- 
cide the  fortunes  of  the  war.  Let  us  generously  give  her 
credit  not  only  for  what  she  has  done,  but  for  what  she  has 
prevented.  Let  us  admit  that  without  her  aid  today  the 
southwest  would  be  irretrievably  lost  to  the  Union." 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  wisdom  and  patience 
which  held  Kentucky  in  the  Union  was  the  wisdom  and  pa- 
tience of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  understood  the  loyal  South 
because  his  own  life  was  part  and  parcel  of  it.  He  under- 
stood the  non-slave-holding  South  because  he  had  sprung 
from  its  loins.  That  understanding  on  the  part  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  came  to  him  in  part  through  his  birth  and  residence 
in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  and  in  part  through  that  broad  and 
intelligent  sympathy  which  were  native  to  him. 

Statistics  furnished  by  the  War  Department  show  that 
the  five  states  of  West  Virginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee  and  North  Carolina  having  a  considerable  moun- 
tain area,  furnished  to  the  Union  a  total  of  195,557  soldiers; 
and  that  when  this  total  is  reduced  according  to  the  War 
Department's  method  to  a  three  years'  standard,  the  number 
of  three-year  soldiers  furnished  by  the  hill  country  of  the 
South  for  the  salvation  of  the  Union  reached  an  aggregate  of 


169,371.  These  were  the  men  who  held  Kentucky  in  the 
Union.  These  were  they  who  furnished  30,000  soldiers  from 
east  Tennessee  when  Tennessee  as  a  state  had  seceded. 
These  were  the  men  who  caused  West  Virginia  to  secede 
from  secession  and  add  a  new  star  to  the  flag.  This  is  some- 
thing that  could  never  have  happened  if  a  radical  abolition- 
ist had  been  in  the  presidential  chair.  It  was  Lincoln's  knowl- 
edge of  the  south,  the  anti-slavery  South,  the  loyal  South, 
which  made  all  this  possible  and  effective.  This  much  at 
least  the  hill  country  of  Kentucky  did  for  Abraham  Lincoln, 
it  taught  him  to  be  patient  with  the  South  till  the  South 
itself  raised  up  a  great  army  and  helped  to  save  the  Union. 

I  know  of  no  place  where  these  things  have  better  right 
to  be  said  than  here  on  the  campus  of  Berea  College.  Berea 
has  stood  for  the  principles  of  Abraham  Lincoln  from  the 
hour  of  its  formation  until  now.  Berea  has  always  believed 
in  the  essential  truths  which  Abraham  Lincoln  represented . 

Furthermore,  Berea  believes,  and  the  career  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  demonstrates,  that  any  form  of  education  to  be 
effective  and  produce  its  largest  and  best  results,  must 
include  the  culture  of  the  heart  and  conscience,  and  produce 
a  right  attitude  toward  God  and  man. 

If  Abraham  Lincoln  were  living  now  and  were  a  young 
man  in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  who  can  doubt  that  he  would 
strain  every  effort  to  become  a  student  in  Berea?  Who  can 
doubt  that  he  would  be  in  sympathy  with  everything  for 
which  this  institution  stands?  Who  can  doubt  that  as  a 
member  of  the  student  body  of  this  college  he  would  be  one 
of  the  most  loyal  and  earnest  of  his  class,  and,  going  forth, 
would  confer  high  honor  upon  Berea  College? 

So  long  as  the  story  of  Abraham  Lincoln  rings  true  to 
the  life  of  the  young  manhood  and  the  young  womanhood  of 
Kentucky,  no  aspiring  youth  need  ever  be  discouraged.  So 
long  as  there  is  an  institution  like  Berea  College  no  worthy 
young  man  or  woman  seeking  an  education  need  ever  be  in 
despair.    The  spirit  of  Berea  and  the  spirit  of  Lincoln  are 


UNIVERSITY  OF  II I  imnie 


close  akin.  Sam  Walter  Foss  wrote  in  1894  a  poem  on 
'The  Coming  American."  In  it  he  represented  the  genius 
of  America  as  crying  forth  from  its  high  mountains  and  its 
wide  plains  for  manhood  commensurate  with  its  vast 
natural  beauty  and  power; 

"Bring  me  men  to  match  my  mountains; 

Bring  me  men  to  match  my  plains, 
Men  with  empires  in  their  purpose, 

And  new  eras  in  their  brains. 
Bring  me  men  to  match  my  prairies. 

Men  to  match  my  inland  seas, 
Men  whose  thought  shall  pave  a  highway 

Up  to  ampler  destinies; 
Pioneers  to  clear  Thought's  marshlands. 

And  to  cleanse  old  Error's  fen; 
Bring  me   men   to  match  my  mountains — 

Bring  me  men!" 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Berea  College  bring  their  two- 
fold answer  to  this  challenge.  Not  without  reason  does  this 
school  proclaim  itself  as  located  in  Lincoln's  state,  with  an 
appeal  to  Lincoln's  kin.  The  kin  of  Abraham  Lincoln  are 
located  all  over  America.  They  belong  to  no  one  state;  like 
Lincoln  they  belong  to  the  common  life  of  the  nation.  Berea 
sends  forth  tall  men  and  strong  men,  beautiful  women  and 
true  women,  men  and  women  of  character  and  intelligence 
and  common  sense  and  simple  goodness,  men  and  women 
capable  of  leadership  and  destined  to  be  leaders  of  America's 
greater  future.  Berea  gazes  in  the  face  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  into  the  faces  of  her  student  body  and  feels  her  own 
kinship  with  his  high  heart  and  heroic  purpose.  Then  she 
gazes  abroad  upon  her  own  campus  and  into  her  own  class- 
rooms and  out  into  the  mountains  and  upon  the  world,  and 
says  to  America,  "Here  are  the  men  to  match  the  mountains." 


¥m 


